Entomology Flashcards
Insects characteristics
Insects have 3 pair of legs
Insects have bilateral symmetry
Most Insects have wings
Insects have 3 main body regions ( head, thorax, abdomen)
Exoskeleton functions
Anchoring point for the muscle attachment and support
Protection from predators
Protection from water loss
Sensing
Antennae eyes are use for
Touch, smell, and hearing
Other uses: navigation, food location, communications, mate location, and grasping
Antenna
Almost always segmented
Shape, number, and relative size often used for identification purposes
Eyes
Light perceiving organs but do not perceive images
Very sensitive to movement
See different Light spectrum than humans
Shape size color and separation used in insect identification
Simple eye
Ocelli
Pair of compound eyes with many lenses
Ommatidia
Types of mouth parts
Chewing, piercing/ sucking, rasping sucking, sponging
Thorax
Middle reagion of the insects body
Connected to head by the cervix
Made up of 3 segments
Legs and wings ( if present) are attached here
Spiracles present on each side
Legs
Always jointed
Consist of 6 parts
Modified for running jumping grasping and digging
Wings
Most adults have 2 pairs of wings
Some only have one and some insects have no wings
Can be helpful in identification due to high amount of variations
Abdomen
Typically compose of segments
Spiracles are present on the first 7 or 8 segments
Various appendages
Cerci, classpers, ovipositors
Exoskeleton parts
Living layer ( epidermis)
Non-living layer ( cuticle)
Sclerotin and chitin give the exoskeleton its hard quality
Epicuticle it’s the outer waxy layer
Exoskeleton molting
In order to grow insects must shed its outer cuticle
This process its know as molting
The period between molts its called an instar
The primary hormone that control molting process its ecdysone
Adult internal anatomy
Digestive system
Circulatory system (open system)
Excretory system ( Malpighian tubes)
Respiratory system
Nervous system ( Brain, nerve, cord, Ganglia)
Muscular system
Reproductive system
